


From Nervous Touch and Getting Drunk

by thecryoftheseagulls



Series: Permutations [2]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Almost Kiss, Drinking, Episode Related, Eventual Kara/Winn/James, M/M, Moral Dilemmas, Pining, Pre-OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 00:41:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6064279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecryoftheseagulls/pseuds/thecryoftheseagulls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the scare with the Black Mercy over, James and Winn decide to get another drink together after they leave Kara's apartment that night.</p><p>(takes place directly after s1e13, 'For The Girl Who Has Everything')</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Nervous Touch and Getting Drunk

“No driving, now,” Kara calls out, and James chuckles, waving once more at Kara and Alex as he shuts the door to the apartment behind him. When he turns the corner of the hall, he sees Winn there, holding the elevator open for him.

“Thanks,” James says. He smiles as he slips inside, and there’s something electric about the moment, the way Winn’s smile goes crooked, tipping up more on one side than the other when their eyes meet.

Or it could be the pleasant buzz James is currently experiencing, making everything softer and better and easier to bear. James hits the button for ground level as Winn pulls his arm back from in front of the doors. The silence is companionable, easy, and then James thinks abruptly how funny it is that they’re back in an elevator. Again.

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” he says with a quiet laugh, dropping his head back against the elevator wall.

“Huh?” Winn looks up at him and cocks his head like a confused puppy, and that just makes the whole thing funnier.

“You know,” James motions expansively around them. “Drunk in an elevator.”

“Oh. Ha.” Winn’s smile is slow to form, and he doesn’t seem as amused as he really should be. The silence falls flat. “’m really not that drunk, this time,” Winn offers, after a moment.

“Mmm,” James murmurs, closing his eyes. “Just tipsy, then.”

“Yeah,” Winn says.

James opens his eyes halfway to study Winn’s profile. It’s a very nice profile - cute round nose, full pink lips, hint of dark stubble around the jaw. He doesn’t know why he hasn’t noticed before.

“How about Kara not being able to get drunk?” Winn says. “That must _suck_.”

“Seriously,” James agrees. He thinks of asking how Winn is holding up, after the whole ‘yeah we’re friends again’ moment back in the apartment with Kara, and then the elevator comes to a stop. They walk out of the building together, Winn burying both hands in his pockets and drawing his shoulders up to his ears, perhaps against the late winter chill. James finds the movement endearing. He makes a split second decision before Winn can step to the curb and wave down a cab, closing a large hand around Winn’s bicep and pulling him back. The way Winn’s eyes snap to his face is startled, like James has triggered his fight-or-flight instinct just by touching him, but he’s not close enough to sober to stay startled for long.

Winn relaxes under his hand, tips his head back, eyes James with something soft and unguarded in his eyes, waits.

“You want to grab another drink?” James asks, swallowing back the other words he wants to add, _with me_ , because the invitation feels dangerously close to something he’s not sure he’s ready for as it is. There’s no reason why he shouldn’t get a drink with Winn, even if this kind of hanging out, alone, outside of work, is something they’ve never done before. He has a vague sense that it’s a bad idea, but he’s having a hard time remembering why exactly, and anyways the question has already been asked.

“You wanna…” Winn wets his lips. “With me?” He’s wearing that lost puppy look again.

“Yeah,” James says simply, shrugging, his hand still on Winn’s arm.

“Okay, yeah. Sure,” Winn says.

There’s a bar they’ve all met at before just a couple of blocks from Kara’s building, and they order their drinks before they grab a table in a relatively quiet corner. Winn sips at his drink and just…watches him, not wary exactly, but definitely waiting for some kind of shoe to drop.

James asks the question he’s been wanting to.

“So, how’s it feel – being back in with Kara?” He’s not trying to tease, but the words come out that way anyways.

Winn gets a pinched look to his face.

“I don’t know, man. Good, I guess? I mean it definitely feels good. There was a while there where I thought-” Winn cuts himself off, pushes out some air from between his lips. James thinks of Kara under that – that _thing_ , earlier, so close to being lost to them, and he doesn’t need Winn to expand on that thought. “Then back at the apartment, she said she’s been feeling lost these last few weeks, and I can’t help but feel like that’s my fault. She just wanted her friend back, and I was the one who was just – acting like a kid, you know?”

“I don’t think anyone blames you for needing some time, Winn,” James says.

“Yeah, but…” Winn shakes his head and goes silent. He looks around the bar and draws patterns in the condensation on his glass.

James studies him. “Well, I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

“You really don’t want to listen to me whine about how my feelings are hurt, trust me,” Winn mutters, not looking at him.

“Do I need to pay for your next Sidecar?” James nods at Winn’s drink with a smirk.

“Fuck you,” Winn says weakly, without malice.

James just grins.

“You know what happened with my dad.” It’s not really a question, but Winn drops his gaze again anyways, like he can’t meet James’ eyes and talk about this. “He was so convinced that we were the same, and we’re not, I know we’re not, but maybe I’ve got what he has inside me, and you know what he did. He just kept everything he felt so deep inside him for so long that eventually it just blew up. I told Kara, when that shit went down – I said I can’t do that, I can’t be like him, I can’t keep bottling my feelings up inside me.” Winn takes a long drink. “And it was such a fucking relief, to be able to sit there and tell her, Kara, I’m in love with you, I’ve been in love with you for so long. But where did that leave us? Just me hurting her and me hurting period, and I don’t know, man, I wouldn’t take it back, but I don’t think it solved anything.” His voice drops. “Ultimately I’m too much of a coward to let her go completely, and I don’t _want_ to do that, but I’m – I’m afraid of what it might mean for me that I haven’t. I don’t know what’s going to happen now. I don’t know if my being around her as just a friend and still being in love with her is going to be good for me, but I – I can’t give her up, you know?” He rubs a hand over his mouth and nose and ends this confession with, “I am so pathetic.”

James wonders if Winn is always like this, all his secrets on the tip of his tongue, ready to be spilled out at the smallest invitation, or if it’s just the alcohol talking. He doesn’t wonder if this is how Winn thinks of himself all the time, like he’s some kind of toxic thing for having his own wants and needs. The man is an open book. And maybe that thought shouldn’t make James as warm and flushed and soft as it does, but he likes it, likes how easy it is to read Winn, how easy it is to trust what Winn says to be true. Kara is the same, all enthusiasm and honesty – she literally bounces on her feet over James bringing food that she likes. But Kara’s head is in the clouds as often as she is, physically, in the clouds, and with Winn there’s always his perceptive green eyes watching James and seeing more of him than James even lets himself see. He can hold to that steady gaze, wishes Winn could see understand how much James values it.

“I don’t think you’re pathetic,” James says. “You want to know what I think?”

Winn shrugs one shoulder.

“I think you’re not your dad. I think you’re stronger than him, and you’re _better_ than him. You can be the kind of friend Kara needs because it’s the right thing to do, because it’s unselfish and kind and that’s who you are. You’re kind. You’re a _good_ man. It’s not cowardly to be there for her even when it hurts, it’s _brave_ , Winn.” James is leaning forward across the table between them, and suddenly he feels like his breath is caught in his throat, and Winn’s eyes are dark and rather colorless in the low light, and James says all in a rush, “I think you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

“How do you _know_?” Winn asks, lets the question out with quiet desperation, and if James thought he was unguarded before, it’s nothing to the expression Winn is wearing now. He catches his bottom lip between his teeth and looks at James from under dark lashes, fervently, like James is his own personal brand of salvation.

James breath hitches funnily again and he sits back, runs a hand over his head.

“I know you,” James says finally.

Winn swallows, and his cheeks turn pink.

“I want you to be right, ‘cause if you’re not, I don’t know what kind of man that makes me, and I don’t think I want to be him,” Winn says. He finishes his drink and stares morosely at his empty glass.

*** 

When they make it out of the bar and to the street, Winn’s hands find their way back into his coat pockets as they wait for a taxi. James is too warm to notice the chill, but he notices the way Winn’s breath ghosts in the air because it draws his eyes to the curve of Winn’s full lips. He notices the scant space between their arms as they stand side by side, nearly touching.

“Winn,” he says softly, and Winn glances up. “You know you’re not – holding it all in anymore, even if you and Kara are back to just friends. Because you’ve got me.”

Winn looks confused by this, and it takes James a moment to review what he just said and find out where he went wrong. He feels like smacking himself.

“I mean,” he amends quickly, “You’ve got me to talk to. About any of it. All of it. Whenever you need, all right?”

Winn looks down at the ground, hiding his reaction somewhat, but James thinks he looks…grateful, maybe.

“Thanks man,” Winn mumbles, and he sounds sincere.

James watches his lips move. He wonders if Winn would taste like lemon and cognac, and if the taste would linger as long as the memory of scotch did last time.

James is drunk enough to want those lips under his, badly, and he’s standing here in the dark and the cold pining after a man who doesn’t remotely know how amazing he is. He still doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he knows what he’s not doing. He’s not kissing one of his good friends while the woman who gave up her career for him is at home, waiting for him.

 _Nobody wants to be with somebody who wants to be with somebody else_ , Winn had said, and James suddenly doesn’t think this is true, because he wants Winn even if Winn wants Kara, and everything is so – everything is so –

Winn looks up at him and offers a small smile, his forehead crinkling over those damned gentle green eyes.

Everything is so definitely screwed.


End file.
